A sleeping woman, contorted by her dreams is draped across a dishevelled bed. Sitting on her chest is a goblin or incubus, and the head of ghostly horse with blank ‘zombie’ eyes enters frame left. The word ‘nightmare’ is derived from Viking folklore where ‘mara’ spirits bring bad dreams in the night and sit on the chests of the dreamers. This ‘night mara’ was probably confused with a ‘night mare’ and here Fuseli explores the linguistic mix-up, personifying both versions. Misunderstood in its day, this represents the first time that the subconscious world of dreams is used as a direct inspiration – preceding the Surrealists by nearly two centuries. The only precedents could be paintings showing the religious visions of saints and works by Bosch.
Fuseli’s dark Romantic style is well showcased here and in his later variations of the theme. The Romantic movement came about as a reaction to the Enlightenment, developing out of a ‘re-discovery’ of the power of feelings, poetic inspiration, dreams, imaginings and the ultimate truth of the emotional response. As with the Enlightenment, in France, Romanticism, in Britain began primarily as a literary and philosophical movement. Reflecting this, Fuseli illustrated scenes from the plays of Shakespeare and the Greek Myths. He had first visited England 1765 when he met William Blake, becoming a friend and an acknowledged influence upon the younger artist. After touring Europe, Fuseli returned to England where he became an associate of the Royal Academy and was then influenced by the figurative style that Blake had developed. The works of these two artists bear many similarities.
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